Sorry it’s been so long since last post! I have been super exhausted these last couple of weeks, tons of work, tons of school, too much food and not enough sleep! Despite the exhaustion all has been good and I’m enjoying myself here.
In the past week or so I’ve had some exciting Moroccan experiences and have made some new friends. Two weekends ago my family took me to a nearby town called Moulay Yacoub, it’s about 17km west of Fes. It’s a really small town in the mountains that was built on top on natural sulfur hot springs. So the town has about 5 hammams (public bath houses) and is a tourist site as a result. The town it’s self is beautiful, and has more of the quaint old world feel that I expected Morocco to have than anything I’ve seen so far. The streets are lined with vendors selling all sorts of bathing accessories that one might need for the hammam including, “kisses” hand loofas that feel more like steel wool on your skin when in use, pumice stones for feet, large bags of henna for skin and hair, rassoul (dried clay that has been mixed with lavender, cloves, orange water, rose and cloves) that you add to warm water to made a paste with which you use to cover yourself with mud and makes your skin and hair really soft, and a variety of other bathing products and amenities. All of these can be bought in single dose amounts for the equivalent of only a few US dollars.
The hammam that I went to with my host family and neighbors was the hammam that locals use. It cost about 8 Dirham (1 US$) per person and consisted of one large communal bathing pool that everyone gather around a bathed in. There was a tap on the side of the pool that everyone got water from (collected in large plastic buckets) and then brought back to her bathing spot. There were seemingly 100 other women there when we first got there, we went on a Sunday, which is a popular, bathing day so there were a ton of people. In these hammams everyone is wearing nothing but their underwear and you bathe with the people that you go with, family or friends. I ended up being there for about three hours and washed my hair and body about four times. You generally leave the hammam with an ultra clean feeling and most women wont bath for anywhere from three days to a week after wards. So far I can only last a day or two without showering but I’m working my way up to Moroccan standards. The sulfur in the piping hot bath water was really awesome, it made both my skin and hair extremely soft, hopefully my permanent site will also be built on sulfur water hot springs! In’shallah! The hammam experience is definitely becoming an essential part of my life here in Morocco.
This last weekend I went to my first Moroccan wedding! I went with my family and another PCT, Rachel, and her host family. I was given a gold and blue kaftan to wear with gold gini pants to wear underneath, which ended up being really hot and uncomfortable. At the wedding there were about 100 people and it took place in about three different houses. For the first 5 hours Rachel and I sat around with our host families waiting to eat, which we didn't do until midnight. By the time we ate everyone had gotten really hungry and crabby, not to mention tired. This was probably the first time that I was hungry since I got here. After we ate we all went to another house and there was a big dance party, which was really fun. Rachel and I were forced to dance by ourselves in front of almost everyone which was really embarrassing, but later we danced more when everyone else was dancing. We also got to see the bride and groom, who didn't appear until the very end of the wedding, about 2 am. We ended up being awake until about 4 am, which is the latest I have stayed up here, thank god we didn't have school the next morning. All in all the dancing was fun but Rachel and I have concluded that most weddings here are just about sitting around and are kind of boring.
My diet has become almost 100% consistent of only sugar oil and olives.
Also we fine out site placements this weekend!!!! Wish me luck for a good site.
Until next time.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
One Month
Sorry I haven’t written much I’ve been super busy in the last couple weeks. More excitingly I’ve been in country for one whole month!
All of last week we were doing a community assessment report of our CBT site, which we had to present to our “community” i.e. mainly our host families last Thursday and then to the other PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees) last weekend in Fes.
Four the community assessment we conducted formal and informal interviews with the community to learn more about certain youth development related topics such as: community participation, education, health and youth. We also did community mapping with some 14-15 year old kids from our site, boys and girls were divided and asked to draw a map of their town and circle the things that were most important to them, common things that were circled were the mosque, their schools and the Dar Chebab, also the girls circled the teleboutiqe and the boys circled this hot spring swimming spot that’s a little outside of the town. We also made a daily calendar and a seasonal calendar that visually depicted the daily and annual activities of our community. The daily calendar was pretty simple, men went to work, kids went to school and women stayed home to cook and clean. The seasonal calendar was a bit more interesting and depicted the wheat and olive growth an harvest cycles, the school calendar, the Dar Chebab calendar, national and religious holidays and some other actives that the community mentioned, like eating hot food in the winter when its cold and looking at the pretty flowers that bloom in the spring. I actually drew the seasonal calendar, and the staging program director liked it so much that he said he was going to make a copy and have it framed for display in the Peace Corps main office in Rabat. Pretty exciting!
Our actual assessment went really well. We found out a number of interesting facts about our community such as, the number one health problem is diabetes (not surprising due to the high sugar diet of Moroccans) and that there are only primary schools in our town and if kids want to go to secondary or higher education they have to go to one in the next town over or possibly commute to Fes to go to school.
Our presentation to the community went really well, we had a turn out of about 45 people, mostly our host families and kids from the Dar Chabab. All of our interviewees showed up which was great since they were able to see that the information they gave us was being used for a positive purpose. We also had a few town officials there as well. Every topic presented was followed by a lively debate amongst the adult community members, signifying that there is not only awareness in the community about their issues but also a strong interest in taking action. Even though most of our presentation wasn’t very comprehensive for our younger audience I think it was very important that they were able to hear about the issues, maybe some of them for the first time, and know that their parents, the community officials and the Peace Corps trainees want to do something about them.
In Fes all of the different CBT groups presented their findings to everyone else and there were a lot of similarities and also a lot of differences. Most of the similarities were that the project was really difficult to conduct because our Darija skills aren't great yet and that we all felt a little uncomfortable telling out host communities our observations about the problems and such since we haven't been in them for very long and wont be staying in them as permanent PCV's and thus don't have a lot of time to implement projects to help ameliorate some of the issues. The biggest difference between the different experiences of the CBT groups were the differences in the Dar Chebabs, one group hasn't even been to their yet and thus has been very limited in their activities, another group had a Dar Chebab that is attended only by mid 20 to 30 something year olds thus they had to completely redefine their idea of what youth is.
Now and for the next couple weeks we will have a current PCV staying with us in our site giving us training about various jobs that we will have to do once we are at our permanent sites. This week we are learning about teaching English in Morocco, then we will be learning about creating/designing community projects and activities which we will later implement in November after our site visit.
We find out our sites in about two weeks and I cant wait. I am requesting a site that is a small town (around 5,000 people), that's warm, with a good hammam, is more green than brown and has a woman's association.
More updates on my family will come soon.
Bslama
All of last week we were doing a community assessment report of our CBT site, which we had to present to our “community” i.e. mainly our host families last Thursday and then to the other PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees) last weekend in Fes.
Four the community assessment we conducted formal and informal interviews with the community to learn more about certain youth development related topics such as: community participation, education, health and youth. We also did community mapping with some 14-15 year old kids from our site, boys and girls were divided and asked to draw a map of their town and circle the things that were most important to them, common things that were circled were the mosque, their schools and the Dar Chebab, also the girls circled the teleboutiqe and the boys circled this hot spring swimming spot that’s a little outside of the town. We also made a daily calendar and a seasonal calendar that visually depicted the daily and annual activities of our community. The daily calendar was pretty simple, men went to work, kids went to school and women stayed home to cook and clean. The seasonal calendar was a bit more interesting and depicted the wheat and olive growth an harvest cycles, the school calendar, the Dar Chebab calendar, national and religious holidays and some other actives that the community mentioned, like eating hot food in the winter when its cold and looking at the pretty flowers that bloom in the spring. I actually drew the seasonal calendar, and the staging program director liked it so much that he said he was going to make a copy and have it framed for display in the Peace Corps main office in Rabat. Pretty exciting!
Our actual assessment went really well. We found out a number of interesting facts about our community such as, the number one health problem is diabetes (not surprising due to the high sugar diet of Moroccans) and that there are only primary schools in our town and if kids want to go to secondary or higher education they have to go to one in the next town over or possibly commute to Fes to go to school.
Our presentation to the community went really well, we had a turn out of about 45 people, mostly our host families and kids from the Dar Chabab. All of our interviewees showed up which was great since they were able to see that the information they gave us was being used for a positive purpose. We also had a few town officials there as well. Every topic presented was followed by a lively debate amongst the adult community members, signifying that there is not only awareness in the community about their issues but also a strong interest in taking action. Even though most of our presentation wasn’t very comprehensive for our younger audience I think it was very important that they were able to hear about the issues, maybe some of them for the first time, and know that their parents, the community officials and the Peace Corps trainees want to do something about them.
In Fes all of the different CBT groups presented their findings to everyone else and there were a lot of similarities and also a lot of differences. Most of the similarities were that the project was really difficult to conduct because our Darija skills aren't great yet and that we all felt a little uncomfortable telling out host communities our observations about the problems and such since we haven't been in them for very long and wont be staying in them as permanent PCV's and thus don't have a lot of time to implement projects to help ameliorate some of the issues. The biggest difference between the different experiences of the CBT groups were the differences in the Dar Chebabs, one group hasn't even been to their yet and thus has been very limited in their activities, another group had a Dar Chebab that is attended only by mid 20 to 30 something year olds thus they had to completely redefine their idea of what youth is.
Now and for the next couple weeks we will have a current PCV staying with us in our site giving us training about various jobs that we will have to do once we are at our permanent sites. This week we are learning about teaching English in Morocco, then we will be learning about creating/designing community projects and activities which we will later implement in November after our site visit.
We find out our sites in about two weeks and I cant wait. I am requesting a site that is a small town (around 5,000 people), that's warm, with a good hammam, is more green than brown and has a woman's association.
More updates on my family will come soon.
Bslama
Friday, October 1, 2010
Darija Words of the Day/Week/Month/Next Two Years of My Life!
Sooo I thought it be fun to give some insight in to the key vocab that I have been surviving on in Morocco.
First to give some background let me start by saying that Darija is the spoken language of Morocco, technically it is a dialect of Arabic however, it is nothing like the “Arabic” that Americans are learning in college or from Rosetta Stone, which is Modern Standard Arabic and is taken from the language of the Koran. It is also nothing like the Arabic that is spoken in the other Arab countries of the world, each of which have their own different dialect of Arabic. Darija is what Moroccans speak, but not what they learn to write in, the learn to write in Modern Standard, because they is no official written version of Darija, thus when trying to learn it you’ll quickly discover that your text book, language teacher and Lonely Planet vocab book all have a different way of spelling the words that you are trying to learn.
Despite this complexity a few words have quickly become my key words that make up 90% of every conversation I am able to have. Not surprisingly they are those words that you normally learn when you are first learning to speak, thus when mixed with the fact that we basically don’t know how to do anything the Moroccan way (i.e. use the Turkish toilet, use money correctly or hail a cab and ensure it’ll get us to the right place) the PCVs and I have officially embraced the fact that we are all currently at preschool level. We have also dubbed our Madrasa (school), that we spend about 9 hrs a day at learning Darija and about Morocco, as “Little America.”
So for all you back home, here are my first words:
Shweeya: literally means little, can be used in key phases like shweeya afak – slow down please, shweeya b shweeya – little by little (I am learning darija), I am a little tired etc.
Zueena/zueen: literally means pretty, can be used to describe anything as being pretty, really good, or that you like a lot such as a women’s kaftan, saying a kid is cute, the food is good. Negative is mazueensh as in I don’t like something.
Muzyn: literally means good, as in I am good, it is good, my day was good, good job, I am okay with this etc.
Bzzzzaf: literally means a lot, can be used to describe anything that is a lot, i.e. you can say something is zueena bzzzaf or that you are muzyn bzzzaf
Fin: where
Shnu: what
Elas: why
Foquash: when
Shnu hadda: what is that?
Brit: I want
Bit: room, example Bit L Ma is literally the water room, or in Moroccan it’s the toilet room.
Shuma: is shame, or what we say when someone does a faux pas, like eating with your left hand.
Etani: give me, for example etani flus means give me money
Zuk: is a “bad” word and means ass, we all learned not to say this when we got excited about our vegetable vendor having zucchinis and screaming out the word.
Shukran: thank you, a word that currently is making up at least 50% of my vocab.
Also fun fact, last night I churned butter from milk from our cows with my host family.
First to give some background let me start by saying that Darija is the spoken language of Morocco, technically it is a dialect of Arabic however, it is nothing like the “Arabic” that Americans are learning in college or from Rosetta Stone, which is Modern Standard Arabic and is taken from the language of the Koran. It is also nothing like the Arabic that is spoken in the other Arab countries of the world, each of which have their own different dialect of Arabic. Darija is what Moroccans speak, but not what they learn to write in, the learn to write in Modern Standard, because they is no official written version of Darija, thus when trying to learn it you’ll quickly discover that your text book, language teacher and Lonely Planet vocab book all have a different way of spelling the words that you are trying to learn.
Despite this complexity a few words have quickly become my key words that make up 90% of every conversation I am able to have. Not surprisingly they are those words that you normally learn when you are first learning to speak, thus when mixed with the fact that we basically don’t know how to do anything the Moroccan way (i.e. use the Turkish toilet, use money correctly or hail a cab and ensure it’ll get us to the right place) the PCVs and I have officially embraced the fact that we are all currently at preschool level. We have also dubbed our Madrasa (school), that we spend about 9 hrs a day at learning Darija and about Morocco, as “Little America.”
So for all you back home, here are my first words:
Shweeya: literally means little, can be used in key phases like shweeya afak – slow down please, shweeya b shweeya – little by little (I am learning darija), I am a little tired etc.
Zueena/zueen: literally means pretty, can be used to describe anything as being pretty, really good, or that you like a lot such as a women’s kaftan, saying a kid is cute, the food is good. Negative is mazueensh as in I don’t like something.
Muzyn: literally means good, as in I am good, it is good, my day was good, good job, I am okay with this etc.
Bzzzzaf: literally means a lot, can be used to describe anything that is a lot, i.e. you can say something is zueena bzzzaf or that you are muzyn bzzzaf
Fin: where
Shnu: what
Elas: why
Foquash: when
Shnu hadda: what is that?
Brit: I want
Bit: room, example Bit L Ma is literally the water room, or in Moroccan it’s the toilet room.
Shuma: is shame, or what we say when someone does a faux pas, like eating with your left hand.
Etani: give me, for example etani flus means give me money
Zuk: is a “bad” word and means ass, we all learned not to say this when we got excited about our vegetable vendor having zucchinis and screaming out the word.
Shukran: thank you, a word that currently is making up at least 50% of my vocab.
Also fun fact, last night I churned butter from milk from our cows with my host family.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
CBT and Famila Moroccan
Now for some news on the host family! For my CBT (Culture Based Training) I’m living in a tiny town outside of Fes, which is comparable to those tiny towns in places like North Dakota where it literally takes 3 minutes to drive the length of the main street and if you were to blink you would miss the entire town. We’ve been told that there are approximately 200-300 people living in the town! Our main street is basically part of the rural highway with a cluster of buildings on either side, there are three salon de teas (for men only), a butcher, a veterinary, a pharmacy, a tiny town hall, a dar chabab (youth center, similar to the one where ill be working at my permanent site), one cyber café with a really slow internet connection, two mosques and three hanoots (little stores comparable to “boutiques” in other African countries, they are normally connected to the owner’s house and sell everything from 10 cent candy to kilos of beans and olives to shampoo and batteries, basically the hanoots have everything you could ever want or need). The rest of the town is spread out behind the main street throughout the surrounding countryside. My house is about a 20 min walk from the main town center and includes walking past cornfields and olive groves and at least one if not two flocks of grazing sheep. There are also some foothill mountains and small views of nearby Fes in the background of the countryside. At night, in addition to a sea of stars, you can see the lights of both Fes and Meknes.
As for my host family, I am living with a lively all women feminist household. I have two xaltis (aunts) Amina and Idrissia and a ten-year-old girl Ghita (pronounced Rita), who is neither of their daughter but is their great niece who they have been raising since infancy. The actual house is beautiful, by Moroccan standards it’s really big for how many people are living in it (four including me), and is fairly modern. We have a washing machine, an espresso machine; satellite tv and a shower room (lots of Moroccans don’t have showers and instead use public baths called Hemmams). On the not so modern side, the shower consists of bucket baths of heated water, and my toilet facilities are of the Turkish type, but mashi muski (it’s not a big deal) I am quickly becoming very comfortable with both.
My xaltis are employed by a small hanoot that we have in front of our house, which services the rest of the people that are living out in the countryside. We also have six chickens and three cows which produce eggs and milk for the family’s consumption. In addition, our yard has olive, fig, pomegranate and orange trees and some fairly large rosemary and basil plants. Behind the house is probably about an acre of land that is filled with olives trees, all of which belong to my xaltis. I have already eaten my weight in olives, which we have at almost every meal, I drink fresh milk on an almost daily basis, and I’ve eaten fresh figs, and have had a variety of amazing food that is cooked by my xalti Amina.
So far my host family has been very patient with my language deficiency, luckily they speak French so, for now, it is our primary mode of communication until my Darija is up to par. Also, since it is only women I feel that it is a lot more relaxed then families with male members, since the mixing of genders is a lot more strict in Morocco, so far it seems that my house is a lot more at ease than some of the other PCV host families, and I don’t have to worry as much about making faux pas that wouldn’t be acceptable to do around men. My family has also given me a really good incite on the lives of two middle aged women in Morocco who had both never married but are both very educated (some of the other host moms or older women from the community that I’ve met are illiterate) and are running a successful hanoot business and seemingly living very comfortable and happy lives.
On Saturday night, after I got back from a Peace Corps meeting in Fes, Amina, Grita and another aunt (one who doesn’t live with us) had a henna party and my hands were covered in over two hours of detailed henna work. Unfortunately I’ve also gotten sick over the last couple of days and my host aunt’s have blamed this occurrence on the changing of seasons but more primarily on the fact that I go out in the morning with wet hair (from showering). So last night Idrissia told me that I would get better if I took a really hot hemmam in our shower room and that we’d do it after I got home from school today. Sure enough immediately when I got home from school she was filling up buckets and beginning to heat the water for a hot bathing session. I was informed that I would be bathing with her and my little cousin Ghita, so after the early evening tea and snack we all entered the bathroom and Ghita and I undressed to our underwear (just bottoms). Then Idrissia proceeded to brush and wash my hair for me and then rub me down with a home made olive salve type stuff and then scrub me with a course hand rag to the point where I think my entire top layer of skin was rubbed off. This experience is similar to what women do in the public Hemmans only you normally pay a stranger to scrub you down and not your host aunt, but another PCV went with her family and said her host sister did the scrubbing, so it’s all relative. I honestly cant remember the last time that someone bathed me or that I took a communal bath, but it was really nice to have someone exfoliate your entire body for you and wash your hair when your super congested and fatigued. After the shower I came out and almost got attacked with a hair dryer and a mound of blankets because my other aunt Amina said that I needed to stay away from the cold to keep from staying sick. Soon after I was fed the Moroccan version of chicken noodle soup, i.e. lentil noodle soup, which was amazingly delicious.
So far embracing Moroccan culture has been great, shweeya b shweeya (little by little) I’m getting integrated.
As for my host family, I am living with a lively all women feminist household. I have two xaltis (aunts) Amina and Idrissia and a ten-year-old girl Ghita (pronounced Rita), who is neither of their daughter but is their great niece who they have been raising since infancy. The actual house is beautiful, by Moroccan standards it’s really big for how many people are living in it (four including me), and is fairly modern. We have a washing machine, an espresso machine; satellite tv and a shower room (lots of Moroccans don’t have showers and instead use public baths called Hemmams). On the not so modern side, the shower consists of bucket baths of heated water, and my toilet facilities are of the Turkish type, but mashi muski (it’s not a big deal) I am quickly becoming very comfortable with both.
My xaltis are employed by a small hanoot that we have in front of our house, which services the rest of the people that are living out in the countryside. We also have six chickens and three cows which produce eggs and milk for the family’s consumption. In addition, our yard has olive, fig, pomegranate and orange trees and some fairly large rosemary and basil plants. Behind the house is probably about an acre of land that is filled with olives trees, all of which belong to my xaltis. I have already eaten my weight in olives, which we have at almost every meal, I drink fresh milk on an almost daily basis, and I’ve eaten fresh figs, and have had a variety of amazing food that is cooked by my xalti Amina.
So far my host family has been very patient with my language deficiency, luckily they speak French so, for now, it is our primary mode of communication until my Darija is up to par. Also, since it is only women I feel that it is a lot more relaxed then families with male members, since the mixing of genders is a lot more strict in Morocco, so far it seems that my house is a lot more at ease than some of the other PCV host families, and I don’t have to worry as much about making faux pas that wouldn’t be acceptable to do around men. My family has also given me a really good incite on the lives of two middle aged women in Morocco who had both never married but are both very educated (some of the other host moms or older women from the community that I’ve met are illiterate) and are running a successful hanoot business and seemingly living very comfortable and happy lives.
On Saturday night, after I got back from a Peace Corps meeting in Fes, Amina, Grita and another aunt (one who doesn’t live with us) had a henna party and my hands were covered in over two hours of detailed henna work. Unfortunately I’ve also gotten sick over the last couple of days and my host aunt’s have blamed this occurrence on the changing of seasons but more primarily on the fact that I go out in the morning with wet hair (from showering). So last night Idrissia told me that I would get better if I took a really hot hemmam in our shower room and that we’d do it after I got home from school today. Sure enough immediately when I got home from school she was filling up buckets and beginning to heat the water for a hot bathing session. I was informed that I would be bathing with her and my little cousin Ghita, so after the early evening tea and snack we all entered the bathroom and Ghita and I undressed to our underwear (just bottoms). Then Idrissia proceeded to brush and wash my hair for me and then rub me down with a home made olive salve type stuff and then scrub me with a course hand rag to the point where I think my entire top layer of skin was rubbed off. This experience is similar to what women do in the public Hemmans only you normally pay a stranger to scrub you down and not your host aunt, but another PCV went with her family and said her host sister did the scrubbing, so it’s all relative. I honestly cant remember the last time that someone bathed me or that I took a communal bath, but it was really nice to have someone exfoliate your entire body for you and wash your hair when your super congested and fatigued. After the shower I came out and almost got attacked with a hair dryer and a mound of blankets because my other aunt Amina said that I needed to stay away from the cold to keep from staying sick. Soon after I was fed the Moroccan version of chicken noodle soup, i.e. lentil noodle soup, which was amazingly delicious.
So far embracing Moroccan culture has been great, shweeya b shweeya (little by little) I’m getting integrated.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Shuma-tastic
Sorry I haven’t written in a while, I haven’t had very good internet access and have been to busy to deal with it.
So last time I wrote something I was still doing my initial PC training in Medhia, I am now with my host family in a small town outside of Fes. A lot has happened over the last week and I’m sure you want to know all the details. During the two days of training we had some other volunteers, from the youth development, health, environment and small business development, come visit use to share their experiences and brief us on what to expect with our host families stays during the next three months of CBT (Culture based training). The three main topics where 1) dealing with Turkish toilets, living in a culture that doesn’t use toilet paper (i.e. you use your left hand) and how to deal with the gastrointestinal problems that you definitely will have, 2) dealing with the language barrier and how to communicate with a family that you’ll be living with for three months when you don’t speak the same language 3) the main cultural barriers and how to deal with the many faux pas that you (again) definitely will make, such as forgetting that in Morocco you don’t use your left hand for most things, like eating or handing things to people, or even covering your mouth when yawning, this is because from now on the left hand will be the bathroom hand and if it’s used for anything else it will be shuma (shame).
After the briefing the volunteers stuck around for a while and would eat meals with use and hang out and such in order to have more informal conversations with all of use new volunteers and to answer any questions we may have. The one thing that was said to me by a certain environmental volunteer that I will never ever forget, was that he told our entire dinner table that during our 2 years and three months in Morocco we will join the “I have shat in my pants club” and that we need to remember “don’t trust your farts”. HAHAHA! There is nothing like that to get you excited for 2 years of hands on intensive development! Later, in another briefing session that we all had before we left for our respective CBT sites/host communities, when we were all talking about our biggest concerns and worries (i.e. not knowing how to use the Turkish toilet or how were going to live with a family that we couldn’t really communicate with or how we were just going to walk into a community with the title of peace corps volunteer and have the patience to deal with/wait for everyone to get over the stereotypes of Americans and accept us) one girl said to all 90 something of use new volunteers that if ever anything is hard or we begin to doubt to just “suck it up and love it”. I couldn’t agree more and feel that all of us immediately accepted this as our PC mantra… just suck it up and love it!!!!
Next post will be all about the new fam. Hopefully I can get back to the internet sometime soon.
So last time I wrote something I was still doing my initial PC training in Medhia, I am now with my host family in a small town outside of Fes. A lot has happened over the last week and I’m sure you want to know all the details. During the two days of training we had some other volunteers, from the youth development, health, environment and small business development, come visit use to share their experiences and brief us on what to expect with our host families stays during the next three months of CBT (Culture based training). The three main topics where 1) dealing with Turkish toilets, living in a culture that doesn’t use toilet paper (i.e. you use your left hand) and how to deal with the gastrointestinal problems that you definitely will have, 2) dealing with the language barrier and how to communicate with a family that you’ll be living with for three months when you don’t speak the same language 3) the main cultural barriers and how to deal with the many faux pas that you (again) definitely will make, such as forgetting that in Morocco you don’t use your left hand for most things, like eating or handing things to people, or even covering your mouth when yawning, this is because from now on the left hand will be the bathroom hand and if it’s used for anything else it will be shuma (shame).
After the briefing the volunteers stuck around for a while and would eat meals with use and hang out and such in order to have more informal conversations with all of use new volunteers and to answer any questions we may have. The one thing that was said to me by a certain environmental volunteer that I will never ever forget, was that he told our entire dinner table that during our 2 years and three months in Morocco we will join the “I have shat in my pants club” and that we need to remember “don’t trust your farts”. HAHAHA! There is nothing like that to get you excited for 2 years of hands on intensive development! Later, in another briefing session that we all had before we left for our respective CBT sites/host communities, when we were all talking about our biggest concerns and worries (i.e. not knowing how to use the Turkish toilet or how were going to live with a family that we couldn’t really communicate with or how we were just going to walk into a community with the title of peace corps volunteer and have the patience to deal with/wait for everyone to get over the stereotypes of Americans and accept us) one girl said to all 90 something of use new volunteers that if ever anything is hard or we begin to doubt to just “suck it up and love it”. I couldn’t agree more and feel that all of us immediately accepted this as our PC mantra… just suck it up and love it!!!!
Next post will be all about the new fam. Hopefully I can get back to the internet sometime soon.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
In Morocco!
So I'm finally in Morocco!
Just in case any of you were wondering, I totally could have packed up to 50 lbs in both suitcases (a lot of people did)! But oh well, guess I'll just have to have to stuff that I left at home shipped over.
So far we've just had a lot of training, policies, securities, health and safety, got a typhoid shot this am, tm we start the rabies vaccine and i think one other shot. Also the first Arabic lesson was this morning, was really fun, I don't think it'll be impossible to learn the language.
Everyone here is really awesome, there are about 5 married couples, a bit of retirees, and the rest are in their mid to late 20's, everyone is interested in international relations, travel, helping the developing world etc, it's really nice to be back with my own kind.
Our hotel is AMAZING! It's in a beach town named Mehdia, about an hour north of Rabat. The hotel is actually a Red Cross building and is right on the beach, a bunch of us went swimming yesterday and today. There was a guy at the beach that had four camels that you could take pictures with. It’s also super hot and humid so its great to swim!
Food’s has been really good, last night there was this amazing soup made of lentils, garbanzo beans and egg. SUPER GOOD, there’s also fresh baguettes at each meal and really sweet mint tea for breakfast and the 4 am coffee break. We’ve also had lots of dates and olives with our food YUM! No couscous until Friday, but I can t wait!
All of the staff is super nice, the country director for the Peace Corps Morocco is here helping to train us, there is also a full medical staff, security staff, staff for the youth development and small business development programs, and some other staff members. Also, the ambassador and his wife came today to greet us and they might also be at our swearing in.
We have two more days here, and then it’s off to Fes and our respective host families, where we’ll be until the end of February.
I’m so glad I’m here and cant wait to meet my family and fully immerse myself in Moroccan culture!
Saturday, September 11, 2010
SUCCESS!
So last night I was instructed by my father to just "forget about it" and that he'd help me take care of everything today or tomorrow. Then we went to a bar and both had a drink in an effort to ease my stress. While we were there I also looked up the weight limit for Delta airline, which I'll be taking to Philly on Monday to start my PC training. Their limit is 50lbs! YES! But Peace Corps has limited at 40lbs... we figured it was probably the limit for Royal Air Maroc, which I'll be taking from NYC to Casablanca on Tuesday. I tired to look it up with my phone but couldn't find their limit.
I woke up this morning panicked because I knew/thought I'd never get this packing thing accomplished. Plus take care of the minor yet annoying things I still had to do like calling my credit card companies and filling out a few more forms.
In an effort to help me calm down my mom went with me on the last few errands that I had to run to get stuff for my trip, like my favorite hair tonic from Aveda that makes my hair really shiny... I know this sounds extremely impractical for the Peace Corps BUT after trying to figure out my head of curly hair since I was in grade school and finally having is mastered I am just not ready to "let go" yet. Thus hair products are coming with me while I attempt to "go native" in Morocco.
Then when I got home I decided to suck it up and just throw everything left that I knew I wanted/NEEDED to bring with me into my two large black Samsonite suitcases (if any of you watch Mad Men you'll appreciate my usage of this luggage brand!) and put them on the scale. The larger is 44lbs and the smaller is 40lbs.... I weighed them and then my dad did. He told me that I should just leave them because it probably wouldn't matter. So, I only needed one more fact to seal the deal, what was Royal Air Maroc's weight limit? I just found it on their website andddddd it's 50 lbs!!!!!!!!!!! So I figure as long as I wont have to pay extra for it being over 40lbs for my two flights I'm golden and I just wont tell the PC that one is slightly over weight.
SUCCESS!
Who would have ever imagined that packing would be so stressful.... especially for me since I've traveled so much in my life time. I finally feel semi relaxed for the first time in a week.
So from now until I leave here's the agenda:
1) Try and remember if there's anything left for me to do/pack and do it before I go.
2) Go out to eat with my mom and dad for Mexican food, a cuisine that I know will be hard to find in Morocco.
3) Hang out with my bff's from highschool and have some sort of going away celebration. Champagne anyone?
4)....... not really sure I'm sure I'll think or something
5) enjoy my last moments in America and start preping for my 7am flight to Philly where I'll get to meet all the other people that have decided to volunteer their lives for two years in the Peace Corps Morocco.
I woke up this morning panicked because I knew/thought I'd never get this packing thing accomplished. Plus take care of the minor yet annoying things I still had to do like calling my credit card companies and filling out a few more forms.
In an effort to help me calm down my mom went with me on the last few errands that I had to run to get stuff for my trip, like my favorite hair tonic from Aveda that makes my hair really shiny... I know this sounds extremely impractical for the Peace Corps BUT after trying to figure out my head of curly hair since I was in grade school and finally having is mastered I am just not ready to "let go" yet. Thus hair products are coming with me while I attempt to "go native" in Morocco.
Then when I got home I decided to suck it up and just throw everything left that I knew I wanted/NEEDED to bring with me into my two large black Samsonite suitcases (if any of you watch Mad Men you'll appreciate my usage of this luggage brand!) and put them on the scale. The larger is 44lbs and the smaller is 40lbs.... I weighed them and then my dad did. He told me that I should just leave them because it probably wouldn't matter. So, I only needed one more fact to seal the deal, what was Royal Air Maroc's weight limit? I just found it on their website andddddd it's 50 lbs!!!!!!!!!!! So I figure as long as I wont have to pay extra for it being over 40lbs for my two flights I'm golden and I just wont tell the PC that one is slightly over weight.
SUCCESS!
Who would have ever imagined that packing would be so stressful.... especially for me since I've traveled so much in my life time. I finally feel semi relaxed for the first time in a week.
So from now until I leave here's the agenda:
1) Try and remember if there's anything left for me to do/pack and do it before I go.
2) Go out to eat with my mom and dad for Mexican food, a cuisine that I know will be hard to find in Morocco.
3) Hang out with my bff's from highschool and have some sort of going away celebration. Champagne anyone?
4)....... not really sure I'm sure I'll think or something
5) enjoy my last moments in America and start preping for my 7am flight to Philly where I'll get to meet all the other people that have decided to volunteer their lives for two years in the Peace Corps Morocco.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)